//------------------------------// // Part 4: Ghoul Fever // Story: FoE: The Gates of Hell // by Mel //------------------------------// - I wasn’t born in a stable, but I think my dad was. He had a pip-buck on his leg for as long as I’d known him. He was a dark pink with a striped white and yellow mane. His cutie mark was a simple open door. My mom’s looked like a wide robronco terminal. Her mane was as green as the screen on her flank and her coat was almost white. Only one of my two sisters had earned their marks; a broadcast tower adorned Broadband. Double Tap and I were blank flanks. We didn’t live in a village proper. Instead we lived in an abandoned building somewhere in the northeast of the Moojave. We stayed low and avoided raiders as best we could, even learned of some neighbors with a similar idea. We were all going to move soon. That’s what Dad said. We’d all gather up our belongings and move to someplace safer, even if we had to trek all the way to Manehattan. I don’t know if that was true or not- we weren’t very safe in our little ruins, but we’d be even more exposed out in the wastes. I think it was raining. I’m certain, in fact. It hardly ever rained in the Moojave. We were all indoors. Broadband, Tap, and I were all working some spare parts we had scrounged from nearby buildings, hoping to put together something that would move. Mom watched us with a smile while Dad looked out into the rain. He said something about leaving this place behind before his eyes opened wide and large. “There’s somepony out there!” he exclaimed. “Raiders?” Mom hurried over to the window. “I… don’t think so. There’s only one.” All of us grew extremely quiet. Tap and I didn’t know what raiders were at the time, but we were convinced that they were serious danger. We stopped working on our little would-be robot. “You’re not going out there, are you?” “We can’t just leave them. They could be a lost stable kid, or an escaped slave.” My father slung on his battle saddle and checked the attached hunting rifle. “Don’t worry, I’m not going unarmed.” Mom retrieved a small pistol from the nightstand. “There is no way you’re going out there alone.” They bickered quickly but Mom was dead set and led the way down a short flight of stairs to the living room and through the front door. She and Dad left with ample warnings for the three of us to stay indoors. We waited anxiously at the top of the stairs for their return. There was the patter of rain and the steady drip of our leaking roof. Then gunfire. Broadband commanded us to stay put while she checked the grimy window, the two of us following practically under her tail. Before anypony could wipe away the filth to look outside, the door burst open and our parents flew through. Mom was unhurt, but Dad was bleeding badly from his foreleg and shoulder. Mom issued orders to each of us, keeping everyone too busy to think or ask about what had happened. Broadband helped to bring Dad to the bedroom. I was sent to fill a pot with water from the bathroom. Double Tap went to get our supply of stimpacks and Rad-Away. We all gathered around while she began to patch up Dad, still dripping wet from the rain. When she could no longer stand our three pairs of young, frightened eyes she asked Broadband to take us and guard the front door. Our fear held us so stiffly that Broadband had to push us like blind animals. I remember looking over my shoulder to see Mom bandaging Dad’s leg. Broadband blocked my view. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. The three of us jumped and hid behind the moth eaten furniture. We couldn’t have been waiting for five minutes when the impatient rapping nearly gave us three tiny heart attacks. Broadband crept out and nervously approached the door. She flinched when the knocking repeated. Carefully placing herself at the side of the door, she beckoned for us to stay hidden. From behind the ratty sofa, we heard the door slowly creaking open. There was quiet for a moment. Then something stepped into the house, rainwater dripping off of it and to the floor in soft pats. “…Shimmer Screen? Girls?” The three of us jumped out of hiding to embrace Dawnfire, an old scarlet pegasus that lived in nearby ruins. We nearly knocked him into the small, red pegasus filly that trailed wordlessly behind him. He asked about the gunfire. Broadband explained what we had seen and led him upstairs with Tap and I both firmly gripping his front legs. “I’ve seen much worse, son. Shimmer Screen will get you back on your feet in no time.” Dad nodded nervously. “Dawnfire…” He looked out at the window. “You’ve been around. Have you ever heard anything about ghouls?” “…Yeah. What about ‘em? A feral do this to you?” “Oh, it was awful!” Mom lamented while she measured out some strips of cloth for spare bandages, “The horrid thing tried to eat us! I’ve seen less barbaric raiders. It looked like it hadn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks, and those eyes… I… really don’t want to think about those eyes.” “Will I really turn?” Dad lifted his good leg to pat Tap on the head. Her and I stood with our front hooves barely reaching the top of the bed. “Ghouls don’t work like that. It’s a condition, not a disease. Just keep swallowing Rad-Away when the missus cleans your wound and you’ll stay as fleshy as the rest of us.” “Of course, of course,” fretted Mom, preparing another batch of Rad-Away, “It’s just the stories, you know. And the movies, if you know where to look. I’ve heard such awful things…” “You’re worrying too much, Miss Screen. Don’t lose any sleep over ghoul bites- you should be more worried about much more mundane infections. Keep that wound clean.” My ears flattened against my head. I didn’t really understand what was happening. All I knew was that my Dad was hurt and something outside had done it. I slipped away from everypony and crept into the living room. I rubbed an off-white hoof against the glass and looked out into the rain. I couldn’t see anything but abandoned streets. “Ah yoo shkaid?” I jumped and turned. At the top of the stairs was the red pegasus filly that had come in with Dawnfire. A pistol was in her mouth. I opened my mouth to say, “What?” but my voice cracked a few times, refusing to form words. She spat the weapon into a little shoulder holster, disturbingly sized for fillies. “I said, are you scared?” I nodded quietly. The filly closed her eyes and turned up her nose. “Yeah, I used to be scared, too.” She took a few steps forward, missing a stair and fluttering her little wings to keep balance. After that she kept her eyes open. “Papa gave me a gun, then I wasn’t so scared. But I’m tough now, you know. I don’t need a gun. Here!” She jumped the last few bounds to reach me, flinging off the holster and landing it on my horn like a horseshoe on a peg. I stood as still as a confused mannequin. “You can have that until you get tough, too. Then I want it back, okay?” I nodded. The holster and harness jerked about my head. “Time Bomb! Where did you go!?” The red filly fluttered over to the stairs. “Down here, Daddy!” The two pegasi left shortly after. We all said goodnight and my parents tried desperately to be reassured. Mom didn’t go to bed that evening. She waited beside Dad all night. We were fine in the morning. Dad cooked breakfast and played with us because Mom had fallen asleep in the early hours and had yet to wake up. He told us he was going to cut his scavenging short today, and he did. He came back with some spare parts for us to tinker with and a few cans of pre-war food that he put in the fridge with our stockpile. Mom and Dad were a little concerned about my new weapon, but decided that they would let me keep it for now. Everything seemed fine. It wasn’t. I had gone downstairs to find a late night snack. Instead I found Dad at the powerless refrigerator, gorging himself on our stockpile. Not all of it, though. The Cram, the jerky, the chunks of disgusting radroach flesh. He was eating all of the meat. I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. I stood in the narrow entryway, shaking as the sounds of my father’s ravenous gorging filled my ears and my future nightmares. Halfway through a piece of raw meat, he saw me. “Sp-Spark Plug…” He glanced quickly at my new gun, then back to me. His eyes were different. Smaller, and discolored. Gobs of greasy meat flew from his mouth as he talked. “Sweetie, maybe you should go back upstairs to mommy, okay? And… tell her… tell her to lock the doors. Lock them and don’t open them, alright? Run along, Spark Plug. Right to mommy. Good girl.” I was at the base of the stairs when I heard his last words. “And Spark Plug… daddy loves you very much, okay?” “…Okay, Daddy.” Then the sounds of gorging continued. Mom locked the door to the master bedroom. We were all inside. Mom wore Dad’s battle saddle, Broadband had Mom’s pistol, and we had even given little Double Tap a small knife. She and I cowered behind Broadband. My tiny pistol was still a little oversized for my young mouth, but I gripped it tightly and nervously. My magic wasn’t strong enough to hold a weapon yet. Mom’s flank was against the wall next to the window. She was standing sentinel to the street below, watching carefully. Every so often she would close one eye and grip the hunting rifle’s bit, as if lining up a shot. But she never fired. Ignorant to the seriousness of the situation, bright and revealing light shone heedlessly through the cloud cover to illuminate our little room. Mom’s eyes began to track something, something moving away from the house. Her mouth moved wordlessly and small tears began to leak from her emerald eyes. Her silent whispers soon coalesced into a quiet ‘No, no no no…’ as the thing her eyes were tracking began to move back to the house. She closed her eyes and stifled a sob as she undid the straps and ties on Dad’s battle saddle, choosing instead to hold the rifle in her magical grip. She pushed us all to the back of the room. Then she and Broadband shoved the massive bed until it blocked the door to our sanctuary. “Honey, I’m home!” It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right. Even Tap could tell that something was terribly wrong with Dad. Mom and Broadband pointed their weapons at the door, so Tap and I did the same. The steady tapping of hooves on the stairs had never been so ominous. They shuffled around, followed by the curious creaking of the doors we left unlocked. Then the door handle in our little tomb shook. “Shimmer… let me in. I’m so hungry. Can’t we all sit down and eat dinner… like a family? It’s me, Shimmer. It’s Open-” “He’s dead.” Mom said flatly. The handle began to shake again. There was the scraping of metal on metal. “Go away. This is one door that’s staying closed.” There was a soft click. “It’s okay, Shimmer. It’s going to be okay. You just need to lay still for a moment. I promise it will be okay. We’ll all be together. We’ll still visit Manehattan. You and me and Broadband and Spark Plug and Double Tap. We’ll even bring Dawnfire and his filly. I can wait until we find other ponies. I promise.” Mom fired a shot at the door, next to the lock. She pulled at something on the rifle and pushed it back with two hollow clicks. “Get out of here.” “…You really need to calm down. Do you remember the little toys we found in the overpass, dear?” Mom’s eyes narrowed in recollection. Then the door opened a crack and a small cylinder flew through. Mom’s eyes widened in alarm. “Close your ears!” she shouted as she jumped atop the small tube. I didn’t respond quickly enough, but I’m not sure it would have mattered. The concussive wave wrecked my hearing, and I saw Mom cry out when a flash of light erupted from underneath her. Then Dad came in. Foolishly, we had left the bed flat, and it did nothing to stop the door from swinging outwards. Dad jumped right over it and onto Mom. I was too scared to move until I saw little Tap charge Dad with the small kitchen knife. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears; all I could see was my Dad biting my little sister. I tried to fire, but my tongue was too small to reach the trigger. Broadband, however, was much bigger. She managed to empty her entire clip into Dad before she charged at him. Mom finished it. She fired two bullets from the rifle and Dad was dead. Mom used the last of our stimpacks on Tap, even though the weird tube had left a horrible burn on her belly where she jumped on it. When all of our hearing came back, she brought us out into the ruins to the small store where Dawnfire and Time Bomb lived. He came over to our house. Mom brought him upstairs, where Dad was, while we waited below. When they came back down, Dawnfire had a haunted look. “You’re the only one who was bitten? You’re certain?” “Yes,” lied Mom. Mom went away. Dawnfire didn’t tell me what had happened until I was older. We stayed at his house while he packed away everything he and our own parents had stockpiled, including Dad’s Pip-Buck. He said we would be moving in the morning. We waited in a dirty room with no windows. Broadband had her own room, Tap and I shared one with Time Bomb. Double Tap woke me early the next morning. It would still be dark outside. She was crying at the foot of the dirty mattress I had been sleeping on. She was crying about Mom and other things I didn’t understand. She asked for food and she wouldn’t stop looking at me. I asked her what was wrong. She kept sobbing. Then she took a step towards me. “Double Tap?” I backed up as she crawled forward, shifting backwards until I hit a wall. I called her name again, but her only responses were continued sobs and… giggling. I pulled my pistol out of its holster and pointed it shakily at Tap. My eyes started to water and I begged her to stop. My tongue frantically reached for the trigger, finding nothing. I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could. A soft blue glow from my horn dimly illuminated the two of us. When my eyes opened I saw her face. I saw those eyes. Like Dad. My magic gripped the trigger and fired. Tap jerked. Everything was still for one second. Then everything came in a rapid blur. Tap leapt for my throat. I cowered. Time Bomb rammed into Tap and knocked her beside the bed. I turned to my sister and fired again and again until my gun made a hollow clicking sound. Tap shakily rose to her feet, blood dripping on the ground. The door flew open and Broadband stood in the doorway with a bright light coming from her horn and Mom’s pistol in her mouth. The light of gunfire reflected off of her glistening eyes as she killed our crying sister. I began to cry into Time Bomb. Broadband held us both. In the morning Dawnfire brought Double Tap into our old house. I couldn’t look at it the same way anymore. I remember being unimaginably grateful when he set fire to the whole building. I sobbed on Broadband’s back when we finally left those blasted ruins. - “Time Bomb and Fallen Flag say it’s something called ‘ghoul fever.’ They say that some fillies get scared and go a little crazy when a ghoul bites them. That zombies aren’t real, just disturbed mares. They say that real ghouls are civilized, wouldn’t hurt a radroach.” “But you know better, don’t you?” Spark Plug refused to make eye contact. “Take it off.” “…” “They’re all monsters. You know they’re all monsters! Disable my combat inhibitor. Free me! Let me finally avenge my squad! Your family!” “…” “This is all a ruse. The dancing, the clothes. They can’t hide their true nature! They’re all monsters! Disgusting, rotten freaks! You can’t let them go!” Spark Plug put down her glass. “You can’t leave me here.” She looked Cerberus in the eye.